Florida’s Republican legislature is taking aim at dramatically overhauling the Supreme Court. The House passed 3 measures, including a constitutional amendment that will be on the ballot next year.

If approved by 60% of voters, the 7 member Supreme Court would add 3 new members and be split into civil and criminal court divisions. The 3 most senior justices – the only remaining justices appointed by the last Democratic Governor – would be moved to the criminal bench.

The 3 new appointees to be picked by Rick Scott would sit on the civil division. The civil court would oversee social issues like abortion and political redistricting.

GOP has no love for the Florida Supreme Court

Also included in the proposed Supreme Court rigging amendment, The Governor would appoint all members of the Judicial Nominating Commission – only one third of which are currently appointed by the Governor. The Republican controlled Senate would be able to confirm the Governor’s appointments. It would also allow the state legislature to repeal court rulings.

“No one party should be in control of all levels of government,” said Rep. Jim Waldman, D-Coconut Creek. “This is an attempt by leadership to not only command the governor’s office, the House and the Senate — but also the judiciary.” Democrats charge the Republicans are overreaching – an attempt by the GOP legislature and Governor Scott to shape redistricting efforts by restricting the court’s independence.

Over 60% of Floridians who voted in November approved Amendments 5 & 6, the Fair District Amendments.

Republicans in the state have been working against the measures, first with their own amendment that was struck down by the courts for being intentionally misleading, and most recently with their lawsuit against implementation. Governor Voldemort even went so far as to withdraw the amendments for review by the DOJ (in compliance with the Voter Rights Act) before the state legislature resubmitted them with prejudicial language.

Florida law currently allows for the recall of local elected officials, but there is no provision to allow for the recall of state officials, unlike 18 other states. Engaged citizens deserve the tools to hold their public servants accountable without having to wait for the next election!

Thats why I introduced legislation to create a citizen recall process in Florida. And to show the widespread support our bill has, I created this petition to be delivered to the Florida State House, the Florida State Senate, and Governor Rick Scott. The petition simply says:

“Create a citizens recall process for state elected officials in Florida by passing Rep. Rick Krisemans House Joint Resolution 785 and House Bill 787.”

Will you sign the petition? Click here to add your name, and then pass it along to your friends:

This blog is in no way dedicated to Governor Voldemort, but he hit new levels of evil with the most recent, despicable executive order cutting 15% of the funding for the severely handicapped, slashing payments by 40% for the 30,000 disabled Floridians who rely on the state’s Medicaid program.

His rule of governing can’t be any clearer: he’s literally stepping on the most vulnerable to kiss the asses of the few corporations who hoard their cash despite record profits. There is no reason he deserves the 30% approval rating he currently has.

In order to stress the need for a recall effort, I wanted to underscore this by updating some information from an earlier post. Recently, I commented on the stunning contrast between Florida Governor Rick Scott’s campaign promise to bring 700,000 jobs to the state of Florida. I noted then that the state of Florida was projected to cut almost 70,000 cash-money jobs.

Florida Governor Rick Scott thinks state workers are on drugs. So are poor people.

Rick Scott issued an executive order requiring drug tests of state employees. Governor Scott made his announcement while praising the Florida Legislature for advancing a bill for mandatory drug-tests of all welfare applicants.

“Floridians deserve to know that those in public service, whose salaries are paid with taxpayer dollars, are part of a drug-free workplace,” Scott said. “Just as it is appropriate to screen those seeking taxpayer assistance, it is also appropriate to screen government employees.”

(Notice Gov. Voldemort’s slick use of symbolism connecting welfare and state workers?)

Rick Scott wants your urine

In 60 days, current employees will be randomly drug tested 4 times a year. Beginning immediately, all new hires will be drug tested.

Oddly enough, there are some who object to this kind of thing. Like the federal judge in Florida who declared this policy unconstitutional 7 years ago. U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle found The Department of Juvenile Justice in violation of the Fourth Amendment when they ordered random drug testing.

In a statement released by the ACLU of Florida, Executive Director Howard Simon remarked “I’m not sure why Gov. Scott does not know that the policy he recreated by executive order today has already been declared unconstitutional”. It seems Emperor Scott views the Constitution (state and federal) as a gray area.

All across the country, the True Liberals’ efforts to teach Barack Obama a lesson are paying off in spades. Their plan could not have worked out more perfectly. After a year of shouting to the highest heavens about how much they were disappointed in President Obama and the Democrats, after a year promising to withhold their support during the 2010 Midterm campaign and, more importantly, at the ballot box, they got their wish: Democrats stayed home in droves. Huge numbers of Democrats across the country, many of whom had voted for the very first time in 2008, got up and went to the fridge instead of the polls that late Fall Tuesday.

Yesterday, in Wisconsin, the tea party Governor and his cadre of Republican Senators figured out a way to bypass Senate Democrats’ exploitation of a loophole that allowed them to put the brakes on a GOP effort to drive a stake into the heart of unions in their state. Most collective bargaining rights for teachers and public employees are now gone as if they were trash taken to the curb. Sure, Scott Walker’s favorables took a beating there for awhile. If it weren’t for that pesky quorum loophole, this would have all been taken care of weeks ago and his numbers wouldn’t have tanked so far. But that’s water under the bridge and now they are back on track. The unions have been squashed like bugs and they can go back to laughing at the protesters as they are frisked and searched and scanned just to enter a public building.

Since Rick Scott bought the Florida Governor’s office, one question has been plaguing me: what’s in it for him? A self-described business-man with no political experience drops over $70 million on his campaign. What’s the pay-off for his large investment? An answer is beginning to materialize, and it’s unsettling how not-surprising it is.

Rick Scott on Cluster FOX

Scott was forced out as head of the for-profit hospital chain Columbia/HCA as a result of federal investigation against the company (who later plead guilty to Medicare fraud and paid a record $1.7 billion in fines). It was revealed that the company had been ripping off Medicare while giving kickbacks to doctors who steered patients to their hospitals. 6 days before he announced his candidacy, Rick Scott was deposed for a federal investigation on fraudulent business practices at his company Solantic.

As Governor, Voldemort transferred his Solantic ownership to his wife’s name. Solantic is regulated by the state, administers Medicaid, is licensed through the Agency for Health Care Administration, The Department of Health licenses its doctors, and both agencies’ secretaries are appointed by the Governor.

Governor Voldemort is very open about his opposition to the Patients for Affordability Act (cleverly referred to as “ObamaCare”). Not only does he refuse to implement the law, he organized raised over $20 million to fight the reform in 2009. Rick Scott is the founder of Conservatives for Patients Rights (CPR), one of the front groups who coordinated with allied groups (including Koch owned “Americans for Prosperity”) protestors at town-hall meetings nationally. This flyer was one of many they sent with schedules of meetings.

Scott has also recently taken action against pill-mill regulation. His controversial plans to kill the prescription drug database allowing law-enforcement to track patients that “doctor shop” to obtain prescriptions for pain-killers like oxycodone. Solantic currently sells on-site prescription medication, and recently announced news they’ll be selling them at a deep discount.

So what do you think Rick Scott hopes to profit from his $70 billion investment?

1. On returning from my trip to the West in February, I received a request from The New York Times to write a piece answering the following questions:

1. What is a fascist?

2. How many fascists have we?

3. How dangerous are they?

2. A fascist is one whose lust for money or power is combined with such an intensity of intolerance toward those of other races, parties, classes, religions, cultures, regions or nations as to make him ruthless in his use of deceit or violence to attain his ends.

Like this:

The demand from Congressional Republicans to slash over $60 billion from the federal budget has been analyzed by two independent sources and the outlook is grim. From the latest reportfrom Moody’s Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi (emphasis mine):

While the government spending cuts proposed by House Republicans for this fiscal year mean only modest fiscal restraint, this restraint is meaningful. If fully adopted, the cuts would shave almost 0.5% from real GDP growth in 2011and another 0.2% in 2012.There would be almost 400,000 fewer U.S. jobs by the end of 2011 than without the cuts and some 700,000 fewer jobs by the end of 2012.

A week earlier, Goldman Sach’s produced a private report for their investors estimating even greater damage. They found the GOP budget “would be a drag on the economy, cutting economic growth by about two percent of GDP.”